It seems that the covert ops "Reduce Avatar progress" has been changed to reduce the Avatar project by one instead of formerly two points making it somewhat less attractive given the increased risk/difficulty of running into an ambush.
So I wonder why not add a "Reduce Avatar progress" sitrep to some regular missions. Mission description/objectives often ask you to recover item x from an Advent facility, kill/capture an Advent scientist or do something that is related to the Avatar project. Instead of just giving you some intel successfull completion of these mission types should also (at least sometimes) directly hamper the progress of the Avatar project. It might make missions a bit more interesting and take an edge off the sometimes imho too fast progress of the Avatar project (never been a great friend of fast running doomtime clocks in games tbh).